Healing or the Symbolic Space of Wounded Land, 2015

The Wounded Land series of workssucceeding to the Border Land series is a symbolic healing space in the midst of the existential “huis clos“ (No Exit) of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the installation at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (DCCA), I presented Grafted Land together with The Wounded Land Trilogy (2010-2015).

Like all maps which, whilst following certain objective codes, create a subjective reality following overt or covert political agendas, Grafted Land deconstruct cartographic power.

The map, spread on an “operation table” with white and red bandages, spools of green thread and green haemostats, relates to a Palestinian Tourist Map of the Holy Land in which the territories of the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Israel are coloured differently. The Green Line (Armistice Line of 1949) and the controversial Separation Wall erected during the Second Intifada figure on the map.

The disputed regions in the Grafted Map,which have undergone a “surgical” procedure, are sliced away from the territory representing Israel on official Israeli maps. The 4 red disembodied and excised parts, of unknown viability, are covered with sterilised gauzes and sutured with a green thread delineating new borders.

Behind the operation table are screened the Wounded Land Trilogy, 3 performances at the Dead Sea, The Hizma checkpoint and in Lifta. All Sisyphean and symbolic acts of healing visible and less visible wounds inscribed in the geography of the landscape and the body.